The people criticising Rose here have either never played high level competitive sport or have been lucky enough to never have a serious debilitating injury.

Playing hard 100% at elite level is taxing on your body and the force on your knees is immense. The man knows his body better than anyone and trust me, he wants to be on the floor. He just needs to do his best to decide when he can play at the level he needs to and be confident he can play his natural game without doing himself further long term damage, pain and time on the sidelines.

Not playing, seems like it's all in his head. If you think you can't play (mentally scared), you won't play no matter what anyone says.

I shattered my knee and it was so hard to return to my first game/practise, but I have to say it's and should be little different when the team is paying you millions and you don't play (if it's all mental)

when you have psychologists, doctors, psychiatrists, physiotherapists, physical trainers, human movement specialists and half a dozen other specialists health workers with you, your expected to do a tad more then the average joe.

better to come back too late than too soon in this case. it's easy to understand the cautionary standpoint. he's the future and wouldn't be the first young franchise player to miss a whole season recently (Griffin). The only thing I wonder about is the chemistry between Rose, Bulls management, and the rest of the team. Rose (and adidas) basically cashed in on his return, yet it never happened. Is there any word on whether Rose has private doubts about the roster and the teams chances? If there's evidence to suggest he's not playing because of reasons outside of mental/physical health than that would be weak and seemingly out of character. but just speculating. He's one of my favorite players